Food insecurity was a widely discussed topic throughout 2022 and conversations have persisted into 2023. Due to supply chain concerns, there was a major infant formula shortage in the United States in 2022.

As a result, there was a propensity that triggered panic buying behavior. According to Fortune Magazine, the price of eggs has increased dramatically by 137% in 2023, raising the possibility of illegal price gouging. 

In a similar manner, Spanish director Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia produced a timely political allegory film called The Platform.

This dystopian horror movie on Netflix depicts future prisoners living in vertical cells stretching hundreds of levels with two prisoners on each level and watching as those inmates in the upper levels are being fed as those in the lower levels starve.

A random level is assigned to each person, where they remain for a month before being drugged and moved to another level. A banquet of food descends from above on a platform of expertly prepared dishes that are lowered starting at Level 0, stopping for two minutes at each level.

The leftovers from the floor above are consumed by each subsequent floor. If someone continues to eat after the platform has disappeared, the level will either heat up and burn them or become frigid and cause them to freeze to death. 

Netflix describes this Spanish film as “a twisted social allegory about mankind at its darkest and hungriest”—a description that strikes me as a weirdly uncanny prescient given that many people in America have recently found themselves emptying grocery store shelves. 

Through extensive metaphors, the film takes shots at capitalism and greed. The film shows us that there are enough resource opportunities for everyone, but greed, overindulgence, and excessive exploitation committed by those above make the people below suffer. 

The movie has an important message that I encourage everyone to watch.